Iron (The Warding Book 1) (7 page)

Her suggestion had merit. I was less than useless in my current state and didn’t see it improving much in the next day or so. A little vacation from responsibility might be just the pick-me-up I needed whilst sorting out the pile of crazy that had just been dropped in my lap. I accepted her offered tissue, dabbing my eyes as I nodded slowly. “Yeah, maybe that is a good idea.”

And it did seem like a good idea. Right up until the moment I got in my car and realized the only place I could go was home. I wasn’t ready to face Jenni and being in the public eye felt far too vulnerable—yet, my apartment no longer struck me as the welcoming bastion of comfort either. Locks were well and good (and living on the second floor was even better) but a door wasn’t going to stop something like Goliath. Hell, if I had just seen a horny faun in the break room there was always the chance that some winged sprite would stop by at my bedroom window to ask for directions to Albuquerque.

Fuck. I thumped my forehead against the steering wheel and cursed whatever cruel deity had taken control over my life. What the hell was I going to do?

Chapter Six

I would like to say I enjoyed my impromptu vacation. You know; that I indulged in a little Entering My Third Decade pampering. Perhaps that I got a much needed massage or had a fresh mani/pedi to brighten my mood. Given the gravity of the weirdness infiltrating my life, a day of drunken debauchery would have been just as fitting. Or, even if I had not had the gumption to go that far, that I had at least spent those days relaxing and recuperating, straightening out my head and making sense of the crazy train I had so recently boarded.

Yeah… I wish.

While I did get a lot of research done over those few days, it was done in the most bat-crap crazy fashion possible. I didn’t leave my apartment. I kept the doors locked and the shades drawn. Every light in every room blazed like the sun 24/7, electric bill be damned. I lived off of coffee and a stockpile of Chinese take-out while I scoured the Internet for every bit of information I could find on the fae. Trust me, when I say “everything” I mean,
everything
. I went far past Google’s top picks as I combed through every single little thing I could find: Wikipedia entries, Irish folklore, mythology essays, references in children’s books, long diatribes on pagan theology. I read it all, right on down to a few eye-searing websites that looked like the proprietor had gone GIF happy when they were created back in the mid-90’s. I even spent the better part of my Friday night reading some weird-ass PDF on Red Caps before I realized it was just some role-playing game guidebook.

Three marathon-long days of searching for some sort of sense—some teeny tiny crumb for my wobbly sanity to cling to—and do you know where it got me?

Nowhere.

Even after sifting through all the chaff, I was left grasping at straws. Every site seemed to contradict the last. The dizzying variations to all the theories of the “truth” behind the fairytales made my brain ache. Not to mention that, in the end, I was just as lost as when I started. Sure, there were people out there who believed that the fae were real. Some of them even managed to not sound completely certifiable while stating their reasons. Hell, there were even some who claimed to have met them, in various places and fashions over the years. Yet, no one I could find had an experience quite like mine.

It took me nearly an hour of figuring out that something that sounded like “es she” was nowhere close to how it should be spelled. Damn Irish, with their mouths full of marbles. Even after translating phonetics into dialect, it did me no good. I could find only the barest mention of the Aos Si and knowing that they were thought to be a supernatural—but equally mythical—race like the sidhe and the near-godlike Tuatha Dé Danann did me no good. Those gobblety-gook words meant nothing to me. I needed facts that just didn’t seem to exist.

Furthermore, I couldn’t find a damn thing about the Warding I supposedly had. Not a single word. A lot of strange, supernatural abilities were attributed to faerie-kind, but that one? Not so much as a whisper. And don’t even get me started on what freaky shit I found when I dared to look up information on “shape shifters.”

Saturday afternoon arrived in the blink of an eye and by that time, I was officially out of steam. My eyes burned from staring so long at the computer screen and the thought of looking at one more website made me physically nauseated. (Or maybe that was last of the pork lo mein that I had eaten for lunch. Cold.) My back ached. I had fallen asleep on the couch with my fireplace poker near at hand two nights running. I wasn’t sure if all the claims about cold iron being lethal to the fae were legit, but it gave me a little peace of mind to think I wasn’t totally defenseless if Goliath showed up on my doorstep.

All in all, I was feeling grungy, cranky, and pretty damn stupid. I slammed my laptop shut and shoved it away from me, sending a cascade of empty soda cans and cardboard take-out containers off the other side of the coffee table.

The shrill, ringing chime of Jenni’s text tone knifed into my self-loathing and made me jump. The realization of how silent the world around me was—and had been for days—only further drove home the level to which I had sunk. I picked my phone up off the couch at my back and read, “
You up yet sleeping ugly?”

It felt foreign to smile. I replied, “
Bitch. Been up since 7 thank you very much.
”

“
Never know with you, old lady. You’ve really taken to this spinster-hermit thing. We still on for tonight?
”

I groaned. Saturday had been the date set in stone for our belated birthday bar hopping. I bit my lip and tried to think of a good excuse. How on earth could I go out drinking now, pretending everything was normal when it felt so…not? My thumb hovered over the digital keyboard as another text came in; “
You’re thinking of ways to keep avoiding me aren’t you? L What happened at Gilroy’s was all my fault; I’m so sorry. I never should have let you go outside alone.
”

I hated that she blamed herself for my “mugging.” I had reassured her multiple times over the past few days that it wasn’t her fault, but the guilt remained. God damn it felt shitty to lie to her. I texted back quickly,
“Stop that. It’s totally not your fault so please stop blaming yourself. I’m okay. That asshole didn’t hurt me. Scared me, yeah, but I’m tougher than that.”

The eye-opening realization struck me like a bolt of lightning, giving me the shivers.

I had just wasted a gift-horse of a vacay locked in my home, running up my electric bill while sucking down quarts of greasy carbs and fatty pork bits. Why? Because I was scared of fairies? I scowled. I was starting to hate the very word. The “me of a few weeks ago” would have laughed and called the “me of that moment” a pathetic loser. In fact, I muttered out loud, “Loser.”

A few days space had started to leave me questioning what I had seen. Could that really have been a troll? I mean—come on. It was crazy enough that three strangers had slipped into my apartment and made me entertain their wacked out story; what were the chances that they had slipped me something that made me hallucinate the woman-turned-cat-turned-back-to-woman act? Maybe I was being a total ass, even trying to convince myself otherwise. How could I start believing in all this crazy magical crap thirty years into my life? Why on God’s green earth would I, of all people, have ever been chosen to have some crazy rare mystical power like this completely untraceable, no mention to be found anywhere in the whole wide world “Warding”?

It all seemed like utter horseshit. Even Marc’s goat-faced leer seemed less and less real to me now after my crusade through the Internet.

One look around at the mess of my living room and another down at myself to see the frumpy, stained sweatpants and faded tank top I was wearing—and had been wearing for days on end—and I made up my mind. Before Jenni could respond again, I texted, “
I’m still down. Just need to clean up and get pretty. Still meeting at your place at 8, right?”

~*~

By 1 a.m. I was tipsy as hell and wondering why I had ever let myself become crippled by fear. Jenni and I had gone through one club, three bars, and enough liquor to make my liver weep. Though the night had started off with some jitters, I was glad I had forced myself out of my self-imposed fortress of solitude. The fresh air (and copious amounts of booze) had done me good. The world was looking brighter by the moment, my earlier fears becoming distant, crazy memories I was glad to leave behind.

Luckily, I managed to talk Jenni out of our usual last stop at Gilroy’s. Discounted drinks or no, I just couldn’t handle that place—not yet. I might have overdone it on my impassioned speech about how she shouldn’t have to spend the end of her night off at her place of employment. I was half in the bag by that point so it’s entirely possible. I’m not even sure if she really bought it or not but, either way, she let it slide.

Instead we wound up at Harbin’s, a low key hole-in-the-wall down the block from Jenni’s apartment. The bartender there had gone to ‘tending school with Jenni and had a bit of a crush on her. That was both convenient—hello free drinks!—and awkward, since she happened to be very much taken and he knew it. Worse still, I knew that he knew it, and hated that he continued to hit on her anyway. I had the feeling I’d spend the remainder of the night running interference if he got too handsy but; whatever. It was still better than having to walk back through Gilroy’s door. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to look at that place the same way again.

Once in the bar, I shoved my coat into Jenni’s arms and made a beeline for the bathroom. It was our usual ritual at the last stop of the night. I had a bladder the size of a pea, so she always procured us a table and a round of drinks while I dashed off to the ladies room. Thankfully there was an open stall, so I didn’t leave her waiting long. I weaved my way over to the back corner, keeping an eye on my treacherous feet. I was glad that I had broken the rules of high fashion and worn flats—and even more glad that there wasn’t much of a crowd in the bar to navigate, given how stumble-y I was.

When I made it to our table and slid into my seat, I was thrilled to see a full glass of wine awaiting me. Jenni was talking with Bryan, who had left his post at the bar to chat her up. Predictable. He loomed between us, a wall of determined stupidity. As usual his back was to me, so that all I could see was a wall of black fabric. I crossed my eyes and stuck my tongue out at him. Jenni stifled a laugh mid-sentence, giving me the mean little thrill of satisfaction I so longed for.

While they chatted, I rifled through my purse for some lip balm. Eventually she would ease my welcome into the break in conversation. Bryan would never acknowledge me himself. I was pretty certain he saw me as the final hurdle in his on-going quest to get her in the sack. He should have realized how lucky he was to be dealing with my puny five-foot-four ass. If not for me, he would have been facing down six feet of angry, muscled marine.

I heard the scrape of the chair between us being pulled out. “—the new girl, Ramona. I’ve got to stick around to keep an eye on her, but she’s got this. I can hang for a bit.”

Balls.

My stint as No Touchy Referee was starting early. Lucky me. The depths of my purse had just become the most interesting place in the world. Anything—even handbag lint—was interesting if it kept me from having to make eye contact and small talk with that douche-nozzle. The joy must have showed on my face, because Jenni chimed in brightly, “And you remember my friend Caitlin, right? We’re celebrating her belated birthday tonight!”

Traitor. I took my sweet time turning away and hanging my purse on the back of my chair. I even rolled my eyes and snarled silently. I was
so
not in the mood for faux fawning tonight, but a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do. She would owe me big for this.

“Of course I do. Happy belated birthday, Cat.” There was only the bear minimum of friendliness in his voice. It was pretty clear he was as sick of my fake flirtations as I was, but if he insisted on playing the same game over and over, I sure as hell wasn’t turning in my cards early. It irked me to hear him call me Cat. Nobody but Jenni and my father did that. We certainly weren’t on chummy enough terms for him to be using nicknames. Still, I plastered a smile on my face as I turned back to the table.

My overly cheerful greeting shriveled up and died on my tongue. Instead of saying anything, I gaped. There’s no other way to describe it. I sat there, mouth hanging open like a hooked trout. I blinked rapidly, like that was going to change something. Like there was a film over my eyes, making me see something straight out of a nightmare not two feet away from my face.

Now Bryan was sitting eye-level with me, facing me—or, what I had once thought of as Bryan was. Though it remained man-shaped, there was little else about the thing before me that could be considered even remotely human. Its gray flesh was almost translucent, with a strangely pearlescent sheen, like a large wax doll. Milky whiteness seemed to roil beneath the surface of its skin, like smoke. The gaunt, oval face I stared into was all but featureless. It was like someone had quickly made the barest impressions of a human face in the wax, smearing thumbprint indentations where the eyes and mouth would have been and nothing else.

I glanced down, away from that horribly blank stare and saw that the clothing it wore hung off its emaciated frame, rippling with its every movement. How had I not noticed that sooner? The hand that rested upon the table was skeletally thin, its knobby, elongated fingers sheathed in the same strange, waxy skin.